Preface
Not everyone finds fugues interesting. A character in a Kingsley Amis novel – a musical journalist, no less – expressed the opinion that fugue was the most boring invention in Western music. I disagree, and looking back over the essays on this website, I see that fugues have cropped up in a striking number of them. But until now, I have shied away from discussing those written by the master, even though the only fugues I ever played were the simpler examples in book 1 of the Well-Tempered Clavier – in C minor and F sharp major. And it is only recently that I have begun to study Bach’s ultimate word on the subject, which is the real subject of this essay. András Schiff, to my mind the greatest exponent of Bach on the piano I have ever heard, would not play The Art of Fugue in public until he had reached the age of 70, which he did in December 2023. There was a performance in Berlin, and then two in the Wigmore Hall both of which I attended. Occasions not easily forgotten.